


Something Under the Bed

by AstroGirl



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Humor, M/M, Monsters, kidfic (sort of )
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil find some surprises lurking under their bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Under the Bed

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Spook Me Halloween ficathon. I requested a random monster prompt and was given "Boogeyman." It was also inspired (loosely) by [this art prompt](http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook%20Me%20Anything%20Goes/BOOGEYMAN2_zps87b8e7f5.jpg), and (in a very minor way) by [this one](http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook%20Me%20Anything%20Goes/scary-scarecrow-in-field-martin-davey_zpse96e2933.jpg). It's rated PG, mostly just because... Night Vale. Note that while no children or animals were harmed in the writing of this fic, I cannot necessarily guarantee the same thing in the fic itself. I think this turned out rather fluffier than I was quite intending, but it's a very _Night Vale_ kind of fluffy. So that's all right, I think.

_Citizens throughout Night Vale have been reporting a rapid increase in boogeyman activity. The City Council, using a series of coded howls and inhuman moans, issued an announcement reminding citizens that, given the choice, boogeymen prefer to prey on "bad" children. They advise that the consumption of children by boogeymen can often be averted, or at least postponed, by such "good child" behaviors as: obeying your parents, eating your vegetables, following all municipal regulations, and reporting any subversive activities among your friends and family. They also advise leaving plates of gluten-free pastries or other tasty treats in areas convenient to the dark hiding places in and around your home, such as in the closet, or under the bushes in your front yard. This, the City Council continued, will not appease the boogeyman. It's just that the sheriff's secret police skipped lunch today, and they're really hungry._

_This has been Children's Fun Fact Science Corner._

**

"Carlos. Carlos, wake up." A hand shakes his shoulder, gentle but insistent. 

Carlos does not want to wake up. Carlos was up very late last night analyzing the remains of those giant worms from yesterday, and, anyway, it's really much more comfortable to spend as much of the nighttime unconscious as possible, here.

"Not now, Cecil," he mumbles. "A scientist needs his sleep."

"Carlos, there's something under the bed."

Carlos opens his eyes, reluctantly. The room is bathed in moonlight. Well, he hopes it's moonlight. The odds are fairly high. If he were more awake, he could calculate them.

He looks up at the clock on the wall, which is, of course, not really a clock, then at Cecil's watch on the nightstand, which is. They don't show the same time, but they both agree that it's far too early to be woken up after a night spent elbow-deep in worm guts.

"It's probably just the Faceless Old Woman," he says. "Go back to sleep."

"I don't think it is," says Cecil. "She makes more of a scuttling sound. This was more like a..." He makes a dragging, slurping, scraping sort of noise. It's really quite impressive that he can produce a sound like that, but then, he _is_ a skilled radio host. Carlos makes a bleary mental note to analyze the acoustics of Cecil's voice sometime. That could be really interesting.

"I'm going to take a look," Cecil continues. "I just wanted to let you know, in case I don't come back. I didn't want you to think that I had walked out on you in the middle of the night."

Carlos rolls over and sits up. Clearly, there's no getting back to sleep now. Besides, curiosity is starting to get the better of him, the way it always does. "That's very sweet of you, Cecil," he says, because it is. "But I wouldn't think that. It would be an extremely low-probability explanation for your disappearance. There are any number of much more likely scenarios--"

But Cecil is already dangling half off the bed, his face peering into the shadows beneath. Automatically, Carlos grabs his feet, just in case there's a sucking vortex into another dimension under there. Although in those cases there are usually attendant phenomena, such as an eerie glowing light, or sometimes an eerie glowing darkness. He wishes he had his Geiger counter.

"Ooh, Carlos!" Cecil's voice calls up, cheerfully. "We've got a _boogeyman_!"

"Like you were talking about on the radio?" Carlos says. 

"Yep!"

"I want to see it. If I let go of your feet, is it going to eat you?"

"Carlos." Cecil's voice has taken on that affectionately condescending tone, the one he uses when Carlos insists on believing in mountains, or questioning the existence of the invisible teleporting clock tower. "Boogeymen don't eat adults. They only feast harmlessly on the souls and bodies of children. Isn't that right?" That last appears to be directed at whatever is underneath the bed. It makes a small, horrible scraping noise, possibly in reply. Carlos thinks it sounds like an affirmative.

He lets go of Cecil, who fails to be either sucked into a vortex or eaten -- yet -- and climbs out of the bed to kneel down beside Cecil's dangling face.

The creature, as far as Carlos can see, appears to be made entirely out of claws and matted hair. No, wait, amend that. The visible surface of it is made of claws and matted hair. Most of it is covered with some kind of cloak that also appears to be made of claws and matted hair, and is thus empirically unobservable. Also, there is a battered but surprisingly jaunty hat perched atop what Carlos provisionally assumes to be its head. He can smell it now, too, a faint whiff of decay and darkness. Carlos has never been able to chemically analyze the scent of darkness, but he's become quite comfortably familiar with it since his arrival in Night Vale.

"Interesting!" he says, and pokes it with his finger. Carlos has never been able to resist poking interesting things with his finger. He strongly suspects that might be how he ended up in Night Vale in the first place, although the memories are disturbingly unclear.

In response to the poking, the creature emits a noise that's half shriek, half rumble, half soundless pain located somewhere about an inch behind each listening ear. Carlos notes the mathematical anomaly for future study as he watches the boogeyman's cloak shudder, and roil... and open. 

Carlos' head reels. His heart fills with a sense of existential dread, with the poignant, soul-filling pain of losing that which he has never had, that which has never existed. He is looking deep into the heart of a dimension unfathomable to human minds, a void more deep, more oppressive than this world's already pretty deep and oppressive void. It is filled with the souls of screaming children. Waves of nausea and pain crash through him, endlessly. Endlessly. Next to him, Cecil falls to the floor with a _thunk_.

The cloak closes.

_Great_ , Carlos thinks. _Now I have a headache on top of no sleep._ Then he looks at that thought, examines it closely, and, in the mental notebook of his mind, scribbles it out and replaces it with _I have been living in Night Vale too long._ He does this a lot. 

"Cecil? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Cecil says, pulling himself into a sitting position. He sounds no less cheerful than he did a moment ago. "So, what do you think?"

"Well, mostly, I'm wondering: if it only eats children, what is it doing under our bed?"

"That's a good question. Huh." Cecil's brow furrows in thought. Then, suddenly, he emits a high-pitched squeak, one hand flying up to cover his mouth. "Ohmigod, Carlos, are you _pregnant_?"

" _What?_ No!"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm... pretty certain?" Carlos says, feeling distressingly less certain with every syllable.

"Really? Have you checked yourself for ovipositor marks lately? You know, the Greater Night Vale Medical Community recommends weekly self-checks, because sometimes when the spiders lay their eggs in you while you're asleep, you don't actually wake up screaming in the middle. The boogeyman could just be waiting for the young to burrow their way out of you so it can eat them!" Cecil flashes him a bright smile, clearly pleased at being able to offer Carlos a viable scientific hypothesis.

Carlos looks at him. He looks at the boogeyman. Something under the matted hair blinks at him.

"I... think I need to run some tests," he says.

**

Four hours of rigorous biological testing later, Carlos is able to conclude, with some relief, that neither he nor Cecil is pregnant, hosting any kind of larva, or suffering from any other kind of medical anomaly. 

Well, Cecil is starting to grow tentacles out of his back, but that's just a thing Cecil does occasionally, usually after exposure to the gaping awfulness of the inter-dimensional void, and is no cause for alarm.

By the time they get back to the bedroom, however, the boogeyman is gone from under the bed, and has been replaced by something much stranger.

**

_Oh, listeners! I wish you could see him! But, since radio remains a non-visual medium, I will attempt to describe him for you. Let's see... Well, he has eyes, a mouth, a nose -- all in the usual places, even! -- perfect little fingers and perfect little toes. He's just so_ cute _! I mean, not quite as cute as Khoshekh, but a very close second._

_Of course, we're still kind of confused about how he got under the bed, since, traditionally, boogeymen make withdrawals of children, rather than deposits. Carlos' initial theory was that he must have been a very good baby, since, as the City Council has recently reminded us, boogeymen much prefer to eat bad children. Perhaps, Carlos suggested, this exceptionally good baby gave the creature some sort of indigestion. Unable, in its sickened state, to bear even the smell of children, perhaps it fled to the comfortingly child-free area under Carlos' and my bed, and there, possibly in response to Carlos poking it with his finger, it regurgitated the little fellow._

_Carlos then rejected this idea, however, claiming that his evilometer was registering noticeably high readings whenever he brought it near the baby. He now thinks the child must have been too_ evil _to digest. This is, no doubt, a difficult thought to accept for those of us who wish to believe in the innocence of childhood, who cherish the idea that all our souls are born into this world clean and pure and that we all live blameless, blessed lives in that state of simple unsullied goodness, until the traditional Sacrifice of Innocence ceremony on our first birthday. But, y'know. Science._

_If I may be honest with you, listeners, the whole situation is a little... awkward. The truth is, Carlos and I have never discussed having children. Oh, sure, I've thought about it. The pitter-patter of little feet! Or hooves. Whichever. A sweet little child who, dare I hope?, might inherit my eyes -- which I'm told are my best feature -- and Carlos' perfect, perfect hair. Ahh! But then I think, Cecil, don't be ridiculous. Who would bring a child into this world of death and decay? Who would deliberately create a human life knowing that life must one day inevitably be snuffed out and forgotten by the indifferent universe? I mean, honestly! That's just bad parenting!_

_Only, well, if fate -- or, okay, the boogeyman --_ gives _you a child, one who's already been created only to die, and who even comes pre-tainted with the evil that no parent can protect their child from indefinitely, thus removing the guilt of that unavoidable failure, well... That's different? Right?_

_I have been calling him Carlos, Jr. Carlos does not seem to approve of this, but I think he's just being modest._

_**_  
  
"I wanted to run a DNA test but couldn't, because the City Council declared today a variable gravity day, and the fluctuations kept unbalancing my centrifuge. But, uh, based on the available evidence, I feel reasonably confident in my conclusion."

"Uh-huh," says Cecil. It's the "uh-huh" that means "I stopped understanding you five sentences ago," which Carlos would object to, except that it also means, "but I am still enjoying the sound of your voice," so it's very hard to remain annoyed.

He sighs and tries again. "So, basically, I'm pretty sure he isn't human."

"Uh-huh," Cecil says again, only this time it's the one that means, "And your point is...?" Cecil's "uh-huh" noises can be very expressive. He bounces the baby on his knee. It looks at Carlos and smiles a happy baby smile. Its deep-set eyes flash a brief, twinkling red.

"He is growing a large quantity of hair."

"What's wrong with hair?" says Cecil. "I like hair."

"It's growing all over his body. Also, he is growing claws. Also all over his body."

"I know!" Cecil beams, tenderly takes the baby's hand in his, and nuzzles the tiny, clawed palm with his nose. "Who has the most beautiful little claws?" he coos. "You do! Yes, you do!" When he raises his nose, it's dripping blood. Cecil rubs it and looks at the smear of red on his hand. "Look! He's already learned how to draw blood! What a precocious boy. You know, I didn't learn how to do that until I was three."

"We'd have to know his normal levels of development to tell if he's precocious," Carlos says. "I don't have any data on that. Other than that the developmental rate must be different from human babies, because he's already doubled in size since last night. Human babies do not do that. In my scientific opinion, this is most likely a baby boogeyman."

"An _adorable_ baby boogeyman!" Cecil says, wiping another drop of blood from the end of his nose.

"Cecil... We can't keep him." Carlos glances at the device currently sitting on their coffee table. There's probably a limit to how much they should rely on it, given that it just showed up in the lab one day and no one on his team of scientists has yet admitted to inventing it. But so far, it's showed extremely believable results for everything he's tested it on. "You've _seen_ the evilometer readings."

It happens in slow motion. First, Cecil's face is smiling, then it is blank, then it just... crumples. "Carlos," he says. "I had no idea you could be so... so _judgmental_." The hurt in Cecil's voice, just for a moment, makes Carlos feel like he's staring into the void again.

Carlos puts a hand over his eyes and listens to himself saying, "Maybe we can keep him. To study. Because he is scientifically interesting."

The hug that Cecil immediately wraps him in might be nicer if it didn't also feature sharp, pointed baby teeth chewing on the lapel of his lab coat. But then, it is in the nature of nice things in Night Vale to come with teeth, literal or metaphorical, or both. He supposes he is becoming used to that. A scientist is always adaptable.

**

_Oh, listeners, they grow up so fast! It seems like only yesterday I was bouncing little Carlos, Jr. on my knee, wiping the ichorous drool from his tiny little lips. Of course, it was not yesterday. It was last Monday. But now he has reached very nearly his full adult size, and has manifested -- from where, we do not know -- the traditional foreboding cloak and hat, to which I have added a colorful paisley trim, for a festive and fashionable touch._

_Unfortunately, like all adolescents, Carlos, Jr. is becoming a leeeetle bit rebellious. The other day, our next-door neighbor, Ms. Gruberman, found him lurking under her son Timmy's bed. She was not happy about this. I, of course, pointed out to her that if perhaps Timmy were less inclined to practice his theremin playing at hours in which his neighbors were trying to sleep, he might be less attractive prey for a young boogeyman wishing to explore his identity. She was not happy about this, either. But, hey, no harm done! She was able to remove Junior before he did more than gnaw a bit on Timmy's ankle, and has since borrowed a scarecrow from John Peters (you know, the farmer), animated it by means of a bloodstone ritual, and set it to watch over Timmy while he sleeps, staring at him all through the night with eyes that should not live, but do. So, that worked out all right._

_But that has not been the end of it. No, Junior has taken, of late, to staying out all night and returning with the smell of baby shampoo on his breath. Now, I was in favor of treating this situation with a good, healthy dose of denying the problem exists, but last night, Carlos pulled me aside and uttered those words no one ever wants to hear: "Cecil, we need to talk."_

_"No we don't," I said. "What could we possibly have to talk about? Things we need to talk about do not exist!" See? Healthy denial._

_But Carlos -- kind, compassionate Carlos -- said, "You know what we have to talk about. We can't let him go around eating children, no matter how scientifically interesting he is. How would you feel if your niece was eaten by a boogeyman?"_

_Naturally, I responded that this would not happen, as Janice is an exceptionally good child, and has also earned her Girl Scout merit badge in monster-fighting. Carlos told me I was missing the point._

_"But," I wailed -- I must admit, I was becoming somewhat emotional -- "But then, what do we_ do _? He's a boogeyman! Eating children is what he does!"_

_And then Carlos -- brilliant, clever Carlos -- thought for a while, and said, "Although it is an observed fact that boogeymen prefer human children, we have also empirically established that they can subsist on the young of non-human species. Junior seems to really like all those baby spiders we've been feeding him."_

_And I said, "Uh-huh."_

_And Carlos said, "Through means of operant conditioning, I believe I can establish an alternate behavioral pattern in the organism in question."_

_And I said, "That sounds great! What does it mean?"_

_Well, listeners, I will tell you what it means! It means that, thanks to Carlos, not only will the children of Night Vale be safe from the appetite of our sweet baby boy -- though not, of course, from anything else -- but, we have_ also _found the solution to Night Vale's recurring series of troublesome puppy infestations!_

_It's just as I always say: all's well that ends with a minimum number of children being consumed._

**

Their home is very quiet, with no youthful gurgling and shrieking from the next room, no scuttling sounds underneath the bed, no theremin playing from next door. Even the Faceless Old Woman seems unusually quiet as Carlos lies with his arm around Cecil, bathed in what he is fairly sure this time is _not_ moonlight, and both of them pretend to sleep.

"Carlos?" 

"Yes, Cecil?"

Cecil slides around inside Carlos' embrace, until they are lying face-to-face. "You were very good with Junior. All those kind, patient lessons in puppy-eating. I just wanted to tell you that."

"Why, thank you, Cecil. Although I think he liked you better."

"No, no. He loved us both equally. _Loves_ us both equally. He just had different ways of showing it."

"You may be right," Carlos says. Considering that Junior's way of loving Cecil involved rather a lot of teeth, and the fact that Carlos has significantly more functional pain-sensing nerves than Cecil, he decides this is probably just as well.

"And even though he's off on his own now, doing the important work of vermin control for the city, and even though, like all creatures, he will eventually decay into nothingness, I'm glad we had him for a while. And not just because little Timmy is now a much more subdued neighbor. Although that's good, too."

Carlos is actually a little worried about Timmy, but that doesn't prevent the familiar surge of warmth he feels towards Cecil. And even towards Junior, who, after all, _was_ surprisingly cute, in his own, disturbing sort of way. Rather like other residents of Night Vale he could name. "I'm glad," he says. "The existence of entropy should not prevent us from enjoying things. Or we would never love anything at all."

"No," Cecil agrees. And then, after a moment, much more hesitantly, he says, "Carlos?" 

"Yes?"

"I... Well, I had a thought. About something you could study. For science."

"What is it?"

"I thought maybe... Maybe you could study how Khoshekh had kittens. I just thought that might be a very interesting subject. Scientifically."

"I actually did try that," Carlos says. "It wasn't easy, though, because of my allergies. And the fact that I couldn't make any photographic documentation. And the venom. But I think it has to do with anatomical irregularities differentiating him from other cats. I don't know if you've noticed them, but they're extremely interesting..."

Carlos stops. Cecil, he realizes, isn't making the adoring face he usually makes when talking about Khoshekh. Instead, he's gone very quiet and very still, except for the way his teeth are biting gently at his lower lip, and Carlos suddenly realizes what it is he was trying to say. Carlos is getting better at understanding that kind of thing. Of course, the fact that Cecil may have been hinting about it on the radio the other day helps.

"Oh," he says. And then, " _Oh._ "

"I was just thinking about it," says Cecil. "That's all."

"Thinking is good," Carlos says. "Thinking is very scientific."

Carlos thinks about it, too. He thinks about the disturbing mental images that conjures up, evaluates them on a sliding scale of disturbing things he's seen or imagined since he's been here, and rates them as "objectively low, but personally significant." He thinks about having children in a place where monsters sometimes eat them, and everyone considers that part of the natural order of things. He thinks about the brave, extraordinary children that Night Vale breeds. He re-examines his level of confidence in Junior's puppy-oriented conditioning, and judges it reassuringly high. He thinks about the things tying him to this place, and how many more such things he's willing to accept. He thinks about how quiet their home is now, and how interesting it was yesterday. He thinks about the void. He thinks about the look on Cecil's face, bouncing the baby boogeyman on his knee. He thinks about Cecil.

He pulls Cecil closer. Illuminated by the mysterious glow in the sky, he listens for a moment to the beat of his own heart, pulsing in sync to the thing on the wall that is not a clock.

"I have thought about it," he announces.

"And?" Cecil's voice is small and hopeful.

"When we're ready," says Carlos. "Maybe we can adopt?"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Something Under the Bed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12892860) by [LadyofMisrule](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofMisrule/pseuds/LadyofMisrule)




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